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WHEN YOU ENLIST 



WHEN YOU ENLIST 



MARGARET SLATTERY 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON CHICAGO 



3V453 



Copyright, 1922 
By SIDNEY A. WESTON 



©C1A800564 

Printed in the United States, of America 

AUG 22 74 

THE JORDAN & MORE PRESS 
BOSTON 



DEDICATION 

To the Youth who for love of the Great Com- 
mander have pledged themselves to his cause, joined 
the noble army of his church and stand ready to 
obey orders without thought of self or safety — 
to go forth to battle for righteousness, justice, 
peace and good will, until hate shall be banished 
from the earth and love shall rule. — The Author. 



" Hope will help the world, faith will give it strength, but 
love will save it." 



CONTENTS 




Jhapter 


Page 


I The Noble Army 


3 


II The First Recruits 


15 


III The Early Conflict 


27 


IV Marching On ... 


43 


V Meeting Defeat 


61 


VI The Undaunted 


77 


VII I Pledge Allegiance 


99 



Chapter I 
THE NOBLE ARMY 



The Son of God goes forth to war 

A kingly crown to gain; 
His blood-red banner streams afar; 

Who follows in his train? 



A noble army, men and boys, 
The matron and the maid, 



They climbed the steep ascent of heaven 

Through peril, toil and pain : 
God, to us may grace be given 

To follow in their train. 

Amen. 



CHAPTER I 
The Noble Army 

The chimes in the church tower are ringing. 
The seats, save a group directly in front of the 
pulpit, are already filled. The air is fragrant with 
the perfume of lovely flowers. There are palms 
on either side of the great organ. The bells seem 
to be singing the very words of the last lines of 
the hymn, " God, to us may grace be given 
to follow in their train. " The great organ joins 
a glorious and triumphant Amen — then plays 
softly while two doors open and men and women, 
boys and girls enter and quietly take the vacant 
seats. Today, amidst the beauty of the flowers, 
the sweetness of the music, the friendliness of all 
the people, they will unite with the church, they 
will join the noble army of those who through the 
ages have " climbed the steep ascent of heaven 
through peril, toil and pain." While the organ 
sounds a challenge or plays a hymn of gratitude 
and hope, all over America the church will wel- 
come with joy those who have come to help in its 
great battle with selfishness — with sin. 

Some of the groups are small — six people, ten 



4 When You Enlist 

people — in one place only two, in another over 
a hundred, but all coming to enlist in the army. 
Some of the churches where they sit are very 
small — one is a tiny, white church away up on a 
hilltop, in a little country town; one is a lonely 
church where two roads cross the wide prairie; 
one has a high, slender steeple reaching away up 
above the blackened houses of a coal-mining 
town; another has a square tower that can be seen 
for miles across the white sands on the very edge 
of the desert. But others are large, like the one 
whose chimes were ringing — hundreds of people 
can find seats in them; they have several towers 
standing out clear against the blue sky; they are 
like great cathedrals in brownstone or marble or 
soft red brick that is very old; the carpets upon 
the aisles are heavy, silencing every footstep; 
the windows are beautiful pictures where one sees 
old stories told in tiny, delicate bits of glass, rich 
in color. But whether the churches be large or 
small, in noisy city, verdant country, lonely 
prairie or desert, through them the people sitting 
there close to the palms and the lilies are to join 
the noble army of which every church is itself 
a part. 

Most of those who are to join are young and 
that is what rejoices the hearts of the people who 
have, for many years, been in the army them- 



The Noble Army 5 

selves. They know how much an army that has 
a noble past and a great future needs youth and 
the strength and courage that only youth can 
give. 

A few moments and the simple service which 
will make these young people and their friends 
members of the great host of men and boys, 
women and girls, all over the world, that have 
chosen Jesus Christ for their leader and the cross 
for their banner, will be over. They will enter 
the army in many different ways; many different 
creeds will be said; many different questions 
beginning, " Do you believe? " will be answered 
according to the teaching of the church, and the 
answers will differ greatly, but every one, regard- 
less of the name of the special division he is to 
join, will pledge his allegiance to Jesus Christ and 
promise to share his purpose and help to carry out 
his program for saving the world from its selfish- 
ness, its hate, its sin. 

It is an easy thing to join the noble army today; 
especially easy in America, although it is not 
easy to keep faithful and never fail it, or play 
the coward in it, or misunderstand its orders, or 
shirk its duties, or desert it, or dishonor it, in 
thought or word or deed; that is hard, as hard 
as it ever was. But there was a time when the 
noble army was small and just beginning its march 



6 When You Enlist 

against evil, when joining it took unbounded 
courage. 

A while ago I stood in a spot in old Rome that 
made me remember those early days when the 
young men and women, the boys and girls, as well 
as those who were old, were obliged to live down 
under the earth for safety, hidden away in diirk 
trenches dug in the solid rock — because they 
were Christians. I was standing that day in the 
Coliseum. The grass was green, there were tiny, 
fragrant flowers half hidden in it. I looked at the 
seats of solid rock as you have seen them rising 
tier upon tier in the famous pictures. They were 
empty now, but in that day of which I was think- 
ing they were crowded with the rich and great of 
Rome and their friends from all the provinces. 
I looked at the doors on either side of the great 
wall of stone, low, close to the ground. Here in 
that other day when the noble army was begin- 
ning, hidden behind the door on one side, was a 
Christian. Often it was a young and very beauti- 
ful girl, sometimes it was a tall, strong boy, pale 
but unafraid, again it was a group of people, old 
and young. Behind the other door, there was 
hidden the Hon, fierce, hungry, lashing his tail 
wildly, eager to kill. The door opened and girl 
or boy came out onto the green grass and faced 
the scornful, shouting crowd crying " death." 



The Noble Army 7 

Then the other door opened, there wiis a terrible 
roar and the lion sprang forth to kill his helpless 
victim while the crowd applauded. That is 
what it meant to be an acknowledged member of 
the band of Christians, one of the noble army, in 
that early day. But if they of that army had 
failed, had run away, had gone back to worship 
the images in the pagan temple and be safe, had 
sung the hymns no more, had tried to forget Christ, 
had disobeyed his command to love God and their 
neighbors, it would not have been possible for you 
to stand quietly amidst the beauty of the flowers 
and the thrilling music and join the church to help 
it in its battle against the enemies of today. But 
they were good soldiers, they lived splendidly and 
they died gloriously without fear; that is why 
they have the right, from the pages of history, 
from the pictures and poems and stories of that 
long-ago day, to challenge you to be worthy of 
the great company you join when your minister 
takes your hand and tells you that, having been 
baptized and in the presence of all the people 
pledged your honor to the church, you are now a 
member of the noble army — grown so great 
through all the centuries that no one can number 
it. Their courage and faith and the wisdom and 
bravery of those who followed after them all 
through the years, have made the army strong, 



8 When You Enlist 

just as your courage, honesty and love of right 
will make it an even greater army for those who 
follow you. 

Each century the noble army th^t formed itself 
into the church had a different battle to fight. 
Sometimes its warfare was against evil and injus- 
tice in governments; sometimes it must fight 
against kings; sometimes its fight was against 
ignorance, so it must teach; sometimes it was 
against envy and jealousy in its own ranks, and it 
must pray, repent and conquer itself; sometimes 
it was against the cruel selfishness of the rich and 
powerful, and it must speak bravely and call upon 
those who thought themselves great, to be just 
and kind. Although this meant prison and death, 
they did not hesitate. They made many blunders, 
but always in the ranks there were some who were 
wise and unafraid. Again and again the army 
divided because there was disagreement over what 
they thought the Bible meant and taught, but 
always there were souls courageous enough to 
follow the light of new knowledge and find out 
more about God. Sometimes one division was 
forced to leave its comrades behind while it 
crossed mountains, rivers, went through dangerous 
forests, or over great, unknown seas in search of 
truth. 

There came periods in the history of the noble 



The Noble Army 9 

army when whole divisions of it forgot their 
Commander, forgot his two great commands, for- 
got that he said that his kingdom was founded on 
love; bitter hatred grew, there were desertions, 
petty quarrels, terrible persecutions; the world 
with its sickness, poverty and great need was 
forgotten and it seemed as though the army that 
had fought its enemies so bravely, might destroy 
itself. When the days were darkest, new leaders 
came to call old warriors back to service and to 
gain new, young, strong recruits; so the army 
went on. When you go to college or when you 
grow older and want to really know for yourself 
about the history of religion and the church, you 
will read the entire story of the Christian faith 
and be thrilled by those great days in the long- 
ago; some days which, when you read about them, 
will make you blush for the blindness and sins of 
the church, and other days that will make you 
unspeakably proud and happy that you can belong 
to so great a company. 

You will find pages in the story of the church 
as interesting as any book you have ever read; 
the days after the Bible was printed in the lan- 
guage spoken by the people in the various coun- 
tries instead of in the Latin and the Greek which 
only the priests and the scholars could read. 
What preachers there were in the days that fol- 



10 When You Enlist 

lowed, when men could read the Bible for them- 
selves! There were preachers with audiences so 
great that no building could hold them and they 
must preach in the fields, preachers so eloquent 
that people followed them about from place to 
place, often with nowhere to sleep and with little 
food, forgetting everything except their great 
desire to hear more. 

You will read of the days after the church began 
to think again about other lands and other people 
not Christian and will see a new division of the 
noble army, strong men and beautiful women, 
young, full of joy and eager to help the world, 
leaving their homes and going to the far-away 
countries of the world about which men knew so 
little; going in sailing vessels because a boat 
driven by steam had never even been dreamed of; 
sailing away to the ends of the earth when there 
was no telegraph and mail took months and even 
years to reach them. They went to Africa, they 
went to India, to China, they went to the cannibal 
islands. In the face of danger, they were unafraid. 
Surrounded by people not one word of whose 
speech they understood, they patiently learned 
the difficult language and dialect; though food was 
so different and some of it, like the raw fish, so 
disagreeable, yet they learned to eat it. They 
lived in scorching jungles surrounded by head- 



The Noble Army 11 

hunting savages; they lived in desolate lands 
covered with ice and snow. No place was so hot, 
so bitterly cold, so ignorant, so lonely, so sur- 
rounded by danger from famine and fever, from 
serpents and savages, that they said, " This is too 
hard; I will go back." They did not come back 
until they had told the story they went to tell and 
translated it into strange, difficult tongues that 
the people might read it for themselves. No 
modern novel has in it the excitement, the thrills, 
the narrow escapes, the romance that you can find 
in the lives of some of these young men and women 
who, in the early days, joined the army and went 
out on the great missionary adventures. 

Something of this story of the noble army, men 
and boys, women and girls, who, through the 
centuries since Jesus Christ was born in Bethle- 
hem, have been making up the Christian church, 
will be told in the chapters that follow in this book. 
As you read it, you will admire and love the great 
heroes about whom it will tell you, and you will 
think of all the millions of others who helped 
them to do their great work. You will see thati 
whenever the noble army met defeat, it wa 
because of selfishness, it was because it forgot t 
love and learned to hate, it did not obey its Com- 
mander. You will see that no army can be greater 
than the men who make up all the vsfrious officers 



12 When You Enlist 

and the countless privates that form its ranks. 
You will see that if individuals are jealous and 
selfish, if they love gold more than God and them- 
selves better than their needy fellow men, then 
the army grows weak. It cannot meet the enemy 
and win — and so the dark pages in history had 
to be written. And you will see too that if the 
individuals, both officers and privates, were 
generous and true-hearted, if they loved God and 
their fellow men, if they were willing to sacrifice, 
if they were afraid of nothing on earth but their 
own sin, then the army grew strong, fought val- 
iantly for right and brought happiness to the earth. 

When you understand that the whole great, 
noble army can be only what the individual 
private and officer helps make it, then you will 
know with what great hope the church turns to 
you. You have united with it. Under the towers 
large or small, in city or country, amidst music 
and flowers, you, a girl in her teens, a boy not yet 
twenty, you have joined the noble army. You 
must make it great. It has hard battles to fight 
for God and man. You must make it strong. 
It needs new truth; you must find it. It needs 
love. It needs love enough to overcome the hate 
that is robbing the world of peace and good will. 

You are the new church. You are the noble 
army of today. You must not fail the world. 



Chapter II 
THE FIRST RECRUITS 



CHAPTER II 

The First Recruits 

When one decides to enlist in the noble army, 
become a member of the church, and help build the 
kingdom of God on the earth, he ought to know 
something about the great organization of which 
he will be a part. The reason why most people 
know so little ^ibout it, is because there is so much 
to know. It is a very long but wonderful story 
and every one may know a few important parts 
of it and as he grows older may add more, until he 
begins to understand how truly great the army is 
and what, despite its blunders, it has done for the 
world. 

When one attends a college banquet, he loves 
the honor which is given to the oldest class, the 
few that are left who graduated fifty, sixty years 
ago, who have stood by the college all through the 
years and have made its name honored and 
respected. 

One loves to read of the pioneers who settled on 
the great prairies and in the mountains in early 
days when life was full of ganger and hardship, 
and one might be called upon at any moment to 



16 When You Enlist 

battle with savages and wild beasts from the 
forests. One enjoys reading of the men who put 
up the first telegraph, the first telephone; of the 
men who had the faith and courage to lay the first 
cable; the men who first left the earth to fly about 
in the air. Some months ago, I sjlw an audience 
of physicians welcome an old man. The physi- 
cians were young and they had all served in the 
World War. The old man was also a physician. 
When he was young he had left his college and 
gone to war. All during that long, terrible Civil 
War, he served in the army. The young physi- 
cians listened with deepest respect while he told 
them of the difficulties of those early days without 
the Red Cross, without ether, with few medicines, 
with no well equipped field hospitals and no motor 
ambulances, of the desperate struggle of the 
physicians to help their wounded comrades live. 
He told them something of the work of women 
nurses and when he mentioned Clara Barton's 
name, they rose and cheered. 

" Beginnings " are always interesting to earnest, 
intelligent young people who so often wonder 
how the things they see about them, came to be. 
You already know something about the story of 
the very beginnings of the Christian church when 
the noble army was being formed and taught and 
trained. You remember the little we know about 



The First Recruits 17 

the boyhood days of Jesus Christ and how he 
called the first recruits to follow him and told 
them his plans for building the kingdom of God 
in the world. Just a few months ago, I stood in 
Palestine beside the Jordan River where Jesus 
asked John, the great preacher and prophet, to 
baptize him. I walked through the hills and over 
the plains where Jesus met the men, young like 
himself, whom he asked to come with him and 
help him as he went about talking of his kingdom 
and healing, encouraging and teaching men. As 
he traveled about from place to place, great 
crowds gathered to hear what he would say and to 
watch him as he made the lame walk and the 
blind see. They were so stirred by his words 
that they followed from village to village and could 
not bear to miss anything that he said. Travel- 
ers told each other about him and crowds gathered 
along the roadside or at the lake where it was 
rumored he would be. It was very easy to imagine 
them sitting on the sloping hillside where we sat, 
while he told them the stories that made his 
teaching plain. The months passed so quickly. 
Then a year and another. He talked a great deal 
about his kingdom. The people of Palestine, 
ruled over by the conquering Romans whom they 
hated, felt sure that he meant that some day he 
was going to furnish them with swords and spears 



18 When You Enlist 

and lead them out to battle against their oppres- 
sors, that they should win and then the Jews 
would live themselves in the great palaces in 
Jerusalem and rule over their own people once 
more. But when the days and weeks passed and 
nothing was done and the Roman rulers passed 
proudly up the hill to the city, the people were 
disappointed. Even the twelve young men who 
traveled about with Jesus grew restless and asked 
again and again when he was going to establish 
his kingdom. When at last he made them see 
that it was not a kingdom that soon, from the 
hilltops of Jerusalem, should rule the people of 
Palestine and keep them safe from their enemies 
while once more they grew rich and great, they 
were keenly disappointed. They had hoped to be 
high officers in that kingdom, great and powerful. 
They found it very hard to be interested in this 
other kingdom about which he talked even more 
earnestly — a kingdom of the mind and heart, 
a kingdom not made with hands, he said, a 
spiritual kingdom of great power that would one 
day rule the whole world, a kingdom that it would 
take long, long centuries to establish. The 
things that he said about this kingdom and its 
power, to the vast crowds that still followed him, 
displeased the Jewish rulers. He taught such 
strange things that they thought very dangerous 



The First Recruits 19 

— and they were dangerous to pride, to greed, to 
selfishness, to insincerity, to hate. He said that 
God was not only the Father of the Jewish people, 
as they had been taught, but also of all people 
everywhere. That they could not believe. He 
said that the synagogues and the temple at Jeru- 
salem were not the only places where one could 
worship God. This seemed a wicked and terrible 
saying to the priests who, whenever they heard it, 
thought quickly that if the people were to believe 
it, there would be fewer worshipers in the syna- 
gogue, fewer pilgrims to the temple, fewer offerings, 
much less money, much less power for them. 
They were afraid of his teaching. 

He told stories such as they had never heard 
before. He told them of the Prodigal Son and his 
father. He said that God was like that father 
waiting for all his prodigal children to come home 
to him. He said God loved them. He told stories 
of shepherds searching through hills and valleys, 
through the brambles of the wilderness for lost 
sheep until they found them. He said God was 
like that — he loved them. He spoke always 
with great sorrow and indignation of the hypo- 
crites, of the false-hearted who did not try to be 
honest and pure and unselfish, but tried very 
hard to make people think they were. When the 
priests and the leaders heard him say these things, 



20 When You Enlist 

they felt his disapproval of them, they felt that he 
knew their souls, and instead of being ashamed and 
repenting to the God of love about whom he told 
them, for the wrongs that they had done, they 
hated him and planned his death. 

The last days came. The great feast days 
came. Jesus ate the Passover supper with the 
twelve young men whom he had taught and 
who, with one exception, although disappointed 
that he did not let the people make him king, 
loved him, honored him and could not leave him. 
At the supper, he reminded them of all he had 
taught them, he prayed for them and he asked that 
whenever they should drink the fresh, red wine 
and eat the bread, they would remember him. 
That was their last supper together. It is the 
supper the church celebrates at the communion 
service because Jesus asked that it be done in 
memory of him. Men have disagreed as to its 
meaning. They have persecuted one another 
because of their disagreement, but we like to forget 
their disputes and differences and think, as we 
take the bread and wine, that we are doing the very 
simple thing he asked his followers to do, remem- 
bering him. The communion has been made a 
very sacred service by all the prayers of nineteen 
hundred years and more — prayers for forgive- 
ness, prayers of confession, prayers of gratitude 



The First Recruits 21 

and joy, prayers for courage, prayers that promised 
more loyalty and greater devotion. When you 
share in the communion service according to the 
way you have been taught by your church, do not 
be troubled or puzzled by the mystical meaning, 
do not be confused by the unfamiliar words and 
phrases, but remember Jesus, how bravely he 
went from the supper to the garden of Gethsemane, 
remember that, after his triumph over himself 
in the garden where God helped him to be strong, 
the most glorious soul the world has ever seen, 
who called himself the Son of God and the Son of 
man, asked all those who loved him to remember 
him in this way. Do not forget that you belong 
to a noble army who, century after century, have 
remembered his purity, his kindness, his under- 
standing sympathy — not one soul ever came 
to him whom he misunderstood; his splendid 
courage — he did not know the meaning of fear. 
Remember his teaching — that God, the Father of 
all the world, will forgive your sin, will help you 
fight it until you win. Remember how he cared 
for the sick, the poor, the little children ; remem- 
ber that he said that the greatest in his kingdom 
are those who serve. Think of all these things 
while the organ plays softly great hymns written 
in moments of gratitude and loyalty, by those who 
in the past have joined the noble army — " Just 



22 When You Enlist 

as I Am," " In the Cross of Christ I Glory," 
" Lord and Master of Us All," and scores of 
others that try to express the love and devotion 
of those who, with you, are members of the 
church. 

If you can remember these things, Jesus, who 
called the first recruits of the noble army together 
and asked them to follow him in his war against 
sin, will not be just a wonderful person who lived 
long, dark centuries ago, in a little land called 
Palestine, but a great Person of Power who lives 
today, who, though unseen, is present in the uni- 
verse now and is calling on you and all others in 
the army to lift up your heads, take courage into 
your hearts and go out to win the two great battles 
that still wait to be won. First, the battle over 
your own sins, the little cheatings, the petty 
lies and deceits, the thoughtless words, the things 
that only you yourself know; and, second, the 
battle with evil in the world, with fear, hate and 
selfishness that cause the pain, sorrow and suffer- 
ing of men, that cause war, poverty and disease, 
that leave people in ignorance without education 
or training, that condemn little children to work 
in the years when they should play — all the 
wrong that robs God's world of happiness and joy. 
If you think of these things, you will go from the 
communion service of your church, certain that 



The First Recruits 23 

God will help you to win both battles, no matter 
how long and hard they may be. You will go 
with courage and confidence and joy. 

All recruits are alike in the beginning ; they have 
to be taught and trained before they can become 
a strong, reliable group upon which the com- 
mander can depend. The recruits whom Jesus 
had called to share in his warfare, learned very 
slowly at first. In the moment of his great dan- 
ger, they ran away. Fear overcame them. Even 
Peter, who boasted of his loyalty, denied that he 
belonged to the company. John, who truly loved 
him, did nothing to help him. Yet only one of 
the company really failed him altogether. The 
temptation was great and it was so easy to run 
away, but when the unfair trial was over, the 
agony of the crucifixion past and the joy of the 
amazing fact that their Master was not dead but 
still could teach, lead and command, was made 
known to them, the little company, ashamed of 
its weakness and cowardice, began to train itself. 
It was determined, in spite of first failures, to 
win, to carry out the orders of its Commander. 
Though they could no longer see him, they knew 
he was waiting for the obedience and loyalty they 
had promised. 

As the days passed, Peter gained courage, the 
very courage of Christ — he feared nothing; 



24 When You Enlist 

and John gained love — it was a love like that of 
Christ; and James gained wisdom — the patient, 
generous wisdom of Christ; and Thomas, who 
found it so hard to believe, went out with a great 
faith to help men to battle against doubt and fear. 
So the little group of recruits became the first 
division of the noble army that was to dare all 
things. 

Let these things give you courage if, after you 
have joined the church, you fail to stand bravely 
in the presence of your comrades for those things 
which it expects of you. If you lose your temper, 
if you run away from duty, if you laugh at some- 
thing unworthy of the joyous laughter of a Chris- 
tian boy or girl, if you think the mean thought, do 
the selfish thing, yield to temptation because you 
are afraid, then do what they did, the first 
recruits — remember Christ; remember the great 
thing with which he has trusted you, the saving 
and serving of the world — you cannot fail ; 
remember his sacred promise to help, and pray to 
be made strong. On your young shoulders rests 
the task of making the church equal to the great 
battles just ahead which she must win if she is to 
lift the world from its unbearable burden of 
poverty, greed and hate. You, the latest recruits 
Of the noble army, will not let the church fail ! 
jgniilioii B3i,89l 9ii — (tahif J to 9§,biijo3 ^^« 



Chapter III 
THE EARLY CONFLICT 



CHAPTER III 

The Early Conflict 

After each of the great wars that have brought 
devastation and death to the world, all the people 
sorrowing over the terrible waste of life, over the 
thousands maimed, crippled and blinded, over all 
the misunderstanding and bitterness that war 
leaves in its track, have said to one another that 
there must never be another war. Yet as you 
study history you will see that they do not remove 
from men's minds and hearts the causes of war. 
War is always made first in men's minds. Ideas 
make war. When the dominating ideas in men's 
minds are wholly selfish, they will oppose all who 
interfere with the carrying out of those ideas. 
It does not take very long for that opposition to 
become hate and where there is hate, sooner or 
later, there will be persecution and war. Men 
can hold absolutely different ideas without hate, 
if those ideas are not selfish, if they do not mean 
that the one who holds them is determined to get 
what he wants for himself, regardless of what 
effect it may have upon the one who disagrees with 
him. It is because man has thought his own 



28 When You Enlist 

particular, personal ideas always right and has 
not been willing to talk them over with his fellow 
men or to listen to their ideas, that practically 
every generation has seen a great war. The ideas 
that Jesus left with his disciples were those of 
peace, good will, sacrifice, service and love. These 
ideas were all new and men did not want them. 
They did not want to serve their fellow men; they 
wanted service from them. Jesus said give; they 
wanted to get When the disciples began to 
preach their gospel of giving and sharing, there 
were bound to be multitudes who disagreed with 
that gospel. When they saw that such a doctrine, 
if accepted, would demand a great change in their 
way of living, they hated the new idea. It is 
only a step from hating an idea to hating those 
who believe it and teach it. That is exactly what 
happened to the first recruits as they went out 
in obedience to the command of Jesus that they 
teach and preach this gospel. Men hated them. 

Hate and desire for revenge make war and we 
shall have no real universal peace until hate and 
revenge are overcome, until we learn to give to all 
other men every right we claim for ourselves, until 
we believe and act " do unto others as ye would 
that they should do to you." There it stands 
waiting to be tested, waiting to be obeyed. 

As you study the days of the early conflict told 



The Early Conflict 29 

very briefly in this chapter, you will see selfishness 
and hate, like a crimson thread, wind in and out 
of the events as they pass. As you see it, say to 
yourselves, selfishness did this, hate brought this 
agony to the men; when you have said it remem- 
ber that you are the noble army which must 
banish these causes of suffering from the world. 
But what if selfishness decide your action? What 
if hate dictate your words? You have enlisted. 
You are our hope. You must not yield to selfish- 
ness and hate. 

You will see that many of those first recruits 
followed the command of Jesus and obeyed his 
orders without fear — they forgot themselves, 
they died in agony asking God to forgive their 
tormentors. They were great souls, triumphant 
and splendid, and those who know nothing about 
them have missed some of the most thrilling scenes 
of heroism the world has ever known. 

On that great day when the eleven young men 
who had followed Jesus and been taught by him 
all the rules and the laws for building his kingdom, 
and the group of women who had known him and 
loved him, were convinced that he was victorious 
over death as he had told them he would be, their 
hearts were filled with unspeakable joy and with 
unbounded courage. It was on that day that the 
coward in Peter died; it was never seen again. 



30 When You Enlist 

Fearless and without a thought of himself, he 
spoke to the great, crowding, pushing, noisy 
multitude about the Christ who had been crucified. 
Over three thousand pledged Peter that day to 
believe and follow the Master of whom he told 
them. With what wonderful, convincing power he 
must have spoken! 

There was no place where these people and 
others, who as the days passed joined the rapidly 
growing noble army, could meet to learn more of 
what Jesus had taught, not a church in all the 
world — temples to Jehovah, temples for the gods 
of Greeks and Romans, but in those they could not 
meet to talk of Christ. They still went to service 
in the synagogue but they could not speak of 
Christ there. So they began to meet in houses, 
when the rooms were large enough for a group to 
meet together; the first churches were in the 
flat-roofed stone houses of Palestine. Peter spoke 
to them and John did. Later James spoke. Very 
simply they told the things that Jesus had said — 
" Do you remember the day when he took the 
children in his arms and blessed them and said, 
1 Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come 
unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven' ? " 
" Do you remember the day when he sat on the 
mountain and told of those who were blessed, 
truly happy — l Blessed are the pure in heart : for 



The Early Conflict 31 

they shall see God' ? " " Yes," another would 
add, " and I remember that he said, ' Blessed are 
ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, 
and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, 
for my sake.' " So they recalled and learned 
many of the sayings and teachings of Jesus. 

In a short time the numbers of those who loved 
him, promised to live as he said men should live, 
and asked to be baptized, became so great that 
the priests began to fear their power. They were 
sure now that people would follow this new way 
and in time the temples would be forsaken and 
no rich offerings would come into their hands. 
Selfishness and hate grew, and persecutions began. 
Stephen, a young, brilliant, courageous follower, 
was stoned to death outside the city gate. I have 
walked from the temple area along the narrow 
road through the gate now called by his name. 
I have stood near the spot where Saul, a young 
Pharisee, stood watching over the coats of those 
who stoned Stephen. What joy it was standing 
there and looking over to the Mount of Olives, 
to remember what this same Saul did when, a 
short time afterward, he became a follower of this 
Christ about whom Stephen spoke so lovingly as 
he died ! 

Not even the growing persecutions could keep 
men from believing when they heard the story 



32 When You Enlist 

told by the earnest company of those who now 
met regularly, sang together, ate together, cared 
for and helped each other. When their property 
was taken away and many were killed, they left 
Jerusalem and found homes all over Palestine and 
in many lands far away toward the desert and the 
sea. Peter preached all over the Near East. 
John and Luke and Barnabas preached, and every- 
where they organized groups of those who believed 
so that they might meet regularly to pray and talk 
and plan their work for each other. To these 
groups, as the months passed, the apostles wrote 
letters to help and encourage and teach them; 
these are the letters now in the New Testament, 
as you know. 

Paul thought most about the teaching of Jesus 
that all men are brothers and God the Father of all. 
This was very hard for him to believe at first, for 
he had been taught that the Jews were God's 
chosen people and he had always thought that God 
cared nothing for men who were not Jews. But 
Paul became convinced that Jesus meant just 
what he had said and so he decided to become a 
preacher to the Gentiles or non-Jewish people. 
This was a difficult and dangerous task but Paul 
was fitted for it. He was a scholar, he spoke 
many languages and was a keen and brilliant 
thinker, and because his father, a Jew, had been 



The Early Conflict 33 

made a Roman citizen, Paul was born a free 
citizen and had more rights than other Jews. 

One of the cities to which Paul went was 
Ephesus. It was a large and prosperous city 
and the center for pilgrims visiting the temples. 
Its people spent much time in the temples worship- 
ing the various gods and goddesses. The Jews 
worshiped Jehovah in their synagogues in the 
narrow streets of the city. When Paul preached, 
great crowds came to hear him and so many 
people were interested, and so many said they 
would like to be followers of the Christ about whom 
he spoke, that the priests of all the temples became 
greatly excited. Even more angry and excited 
than the priests were the merchants who made 
gold and silver images of the gods and goddesses, 
who made incense and incense burners. " If the 
people follow this Christ about whom these men 
preach," said priests and merchants, " what will 
become of us? These Christ-followers have no 
temples, they have no images, they have no 
incense, they have no great feast days, there will 
be nothing to sell. This Paul says there are no 
gods made with hands." But each day more 
people came to hear and said they meant to follow 
this new way, as they called it. The priests and 
merchants said they would not be permitted to 
worship this Christ in the new, strange way. 



34 When You Enlist 

Many disputes and arguments arose and finally a 
great riot which brought officers and soldiers and 
drove Paul and his helpers from the city. The 
priests and the merchants continued to persecute 
those who met together to learn more of Christ; 
they began to call them by the name which had 
been given them in Antioch. They said the word 
in tones of scorn and bitterness, " These people 
are not worshipers of Jupiter or Zeus or any one of 
the gods, not even the Jehovah of the Jews, but 
followers of one called Christ — Christians." It 
was a long time before the followers of Jesus called 
themselves by that name but, starting in Antioch, 
it traveled from city to city and finally became the 
name by which all the growing army was called. 

The story of the persecutions in Ephesus and 
like persecutions in Antioch could be repeated of 
practically every city to which Paul and his 
helpers went. 

The years passed. The noble army, in spite of 
persecutions, grew strong. When one leader was 
killed or imprisoned, others took his place. Paul, 
while in prison, spent all his time writing letters. 
He wrote to the Ephesians, he wrote to the 
churches at Philippi, at Corinth and in Thessa- 
lonica — messages reminding them of how sincere 
and great they must be, that the new faith might 
be kept pure and true to what Christ taught. 









The Early Conflict 35 

What he said in these letters you have studied 
many times in the books of the New Testament. 

At last, after persecutions and beatings, sick- 
ness, shipwreck and imprisonment, Paul found 
himself in Rome, the very center of the whole 
known world. What a wonderful city it must 
have been in those days, for it is wonderful even 
now after hundreds of years have passed. When 
you stand, as many of you will some day, in the 
Coliseum or travel over the old Roman road, see 
the ruins of the old palaces, visit the catacombs 
and walk about the seven hills, you will find it 
easy to imagine what an impressive place it must 
have been when it was the ruling city of the world 
and its word meant life or death to countless 
thousands. It is no wonder that Paul was thrilled 
over the opportunity to tell the story of Jesus 
Christ to these proud, haughty, conquering 
Romans who despised all other men and made 
them their servants and slaves, even though he 
must stand before them a prisoner in chains. 

Not long after Paul had his opportunity to 
preach about Christ and his call to men to choose 
God for their Father and to make all men their 
brothers, there was a very bitter persecution all 
over Europe, and during this time Paul probably 
met his death, with a host of other Christians. 

The years hurried past and there came a day 



36 When You Enlist 

when all the men who had known Jesus so well, 
who had traveled about Palestine with him, shared 
that last supper in Jerusalem, heard him speak and 
teach, were dead. Peter had been crucified, John 
was dead, Thomas, James, all were gone. The 
letters they had written were scattered about 
through the various Christian companies in 
Europe and Asia. But the church was growing. 
It had special meeting-places outside the homes. 
The girls and women who learned the sayings of 
Jesus and his prayer, taught the children. They 
took part in the services, they helped care for the 
sick, the poor and the widows. All the church was 
being organized and the leading men became 
elders, bishops, presbyters, officers of different 
names, who should help in the work of the church 
and aid the Christians who were sick or poor and 
the churches that were small or weak. Always the 
Christians were in danger of persecution, for they 
could not worship the old, pagan gods or have 
their images in their homes, and so they were 
accused of atheism and put to death, or because 
they must worship only God and could not burn 
incense before the emperor's statue, they were 
accused of treason, and for this also they could 
be put to death. 

Among the bishops who had been given charge 
of the work of the growing church, one of the 



The Early Conflict 37 

greatest was Polycarp. He had become a Chris- 
tian when he was a very young boy and his life 
had been a wonderful example to all Christians. 
He was the Bishop of Smyrna, a large and pros- 
perous city. A series of terrible earthquakes 
almost destroyed the city and the suffering was 
great. The people of that day knew nothing of the 
reason for earthquakes, they knew nothing of the 
great changes that were taking place in the earth's 
surface and they thought the gods were displeased 
over something and sent the earthquakes as a 
punishment. They tried to think of something 
that might have been done in Smyrna to displease 
the gods and some one suggested the Christians 
who refused to worship all pagan gods. The non- 
Christian Jews who hated them agreed, and 
terrible persecutions followed. At first, the Chris- 
tians were able to hide their beloved, kindly old 
bishop but he was finally discovered and the crowd 
cried, " Put him to death." The governor tried 
to save him. " You are an old man/' he said; 
" what difference will it make if you burn incense 
to Caesar or give an offering to the gods? Bow 
down, old man, curse your Christ and live." 
But a young voice from the crowd called out, " Be 
brave, Polycarp, and play the man! " There was 
no need to challenge him. Polycarp was speaking. 
" Eighty and six years have I served Christ and 



38 When You Enlist 

he has never wronged me. How could I speak 
evil of my King and Saviour ! " He walked bravely 
to the fire built in the amphitheatre and died. 
Many people, seeing the splendid courage of 
the old man and the look of triumph on his brave 
face, joined the noble army and became members 
of that early church despite the fact that it always 
meant danger and often death to be called Chris- 
tian. 

So the days of the early conflict between the old 
idea of many gods who must be pleased lest they 
destroy men, and the new idea of a God of love and 
understanding who wanted, more than anything 
else, to save men, passed. The noble army 
proved its courage and its faith and grew in 
strength and influence. Many people of wealth 
joined it, spending their money for the good of all; 
some people of learning and culture joined it 
and studied earnestly, trying to understand the 
kingdom that Jesus wanted to set up on the earth. 
Many of them did understand and their lives were 
so beautiful, so full of courage and joy that others, 
seeing them, asked to be taught this new religion 
that made Christians so different from their non- 
Christian neighbors. It was the lives of these 
followers of Christ in the early conflict that made 
the noble army grow. That will make it grow 
now. That is why the church looks to you with 



The Early Conflict 39 

such hope. You will help by your clean, sincere, 
honest, happy lives to make others want to join 
the noble army, to strengthen it as it fights against 
sin. You are young, and wrong thinking is 
easy to change when one is young. You can learn 
to think of all the youth of all the world in the 
spirit of love and service, and thoughts make 
ideas, and ideas, as you saw at the beginning of 
the chapter, rule the world. The unhappy world 
of your day needs new ideas. Because you are 
young you have the courage to carry out orders 
that make older men and women, even the best of 
them, say, " It can't be done." The whole world is 
hoping that the time has come when the great 
principles taught so faithfully by the early dis- 
ciples will be tested and tried in homes, communi- 
ties, schools, churches and nations. Perhaps you 
are the ones who will really try the Golden Rule. 
It alone can save the governments of men. 

In the days of the early conflict, the noble army 
— men and boys, girls and women — or, as the 
old hymn says, " the matron and the maid " — 
believed that the commands that Jesus gave, no 
matter how difficult they seemed, were meant to 
be carried out. They tried — forgetting them- 
selves, fearing nothing. They fought bravely 
against sin in their own lives and in the church. 
It may be that some morning when you hear the 



40 When You Enlist 

people singing those great words of challenge — 
" Who follows in their train? " that hundreds of 
you will say, " We do! " It will be a great day of 
hope for a world, at this moment almost overcome 
by selfishness and hate! 



Chapter IV 
MARCHING ON 



CHAPTER IV 

Marching On 

Despite the fact that the noble army, men and 
boys, women and girls, recruited in Palestine and 
sent out all over the world to win new members, 
stood constantly face to face with danger, persecu- 
tion and death, it had, as we have seen, made 
progress. It was only one hundred and fifty-five 
years old when Polycarp gave up his life rather 
than deny Jesus Christ to whom he had pledged 
his loyalty. Although some of the members clung 
to pagan customs and failed to live up to the high 
ideals that had been taught them, yet the great 
majority of those called Christian lived in such a 
way that they stood out in marked contrast to all 
the rest of the world. In a day when barbaric 
cruelty ruled the sports and games which were 
practically the only forms of amusement, they 
refused to attend the gladiator shows. If all men 
were brothers they could not see some killed by 
ferocious wild beasts for the amusement of the 
rest. In a day when all men who could afford it 
owned slaves, they began to set theirs free and 
they treated the slaves of others with respect as 



44 When You Enlist 

human beings, as what Christ said they were — 
brother men. In a day when labor with the 
hands was despised and performed only by slaves 
or the very poor and degraded, they honored it. 
Rich and poor, the Christian laborer breaking 
stones for road building and the Christian owner 
of the palace beside the road, were friends. The 
Christian laborer had his tools carved upon his 
tombstone as a mark of honor. Such a thing 
never had been known before — but was not the 
Leader of the army a carpenter? The apostles 
worked with their hands and taught the dignity 
and honor of self-support. Wherever a band of 
Christians lived, the poor were helped, the sick 
were cared for, little children were protected. 
Non-Christian men were astonished as they saw 
the purity and strength of their lives. " They 
seem to love even their enemies, " said one rich 
young prince as he sought them out to learn the 
secret of such victorious living. 

So, strong in spirit as well as in numbers, the 
army was making progress in the fight against 
selfishness and hate. Sometimes the emperors 
of Rome were friendly and interested and then 
great numbers joined the Christians, but when a 
ruler at Rome withdrew his favor and persecutions 
arose, these often forsook the noble army and went 
back to their pagan gods, leaving the truly faith- 



Marching On 45 

ful to carry on the fight. These smaller groups, 
Christian both in word and deed, read the Old 
Testament rolls, listened to the letters of the 
apostles, sang hymns their members had written, 
and taught their children the stories of Christ. 
When Trajan became emperor, because of the 
many uprisings and plots against the government, 
he ordered that no evening meetings of any groups 
whatever should be held. So the Christians were 
obliged to hold their weekly service in the morning 
and the communion, which had been celebrated 
at the time when Jesus and his disciples had eaten 
it in Jerusalem, was also changed to the morning 
hour, and now only members of the Christian 
church were permitted to join in it. As the years 
passed, these and other changes took place in 
Christian worship. There were questions and 
discussions about Christ and some groups talked 
so much as to just what they should believe about 
him and tried so hard to explain him that they 
forgot what he asked them to do. 

Some of the Christian groups could not forget 
the glorious feast days of the pagan temples which 
they had once enjoyed — the music, the dancing, 
the processions, the offerings, the holidays — and 
the plain, simple worship of the Christian church 
did not satisfy them. So, little by little, all sorts 
of forms and ceremonies crept in. Those who were 



46 When You Enlist 

to be baptized kept an all-night vigil in the church, 
sometimes the mark of the cross was placed on 
their foreheads, sometimes after baptism they 
were dressed in white robes to symbolize their new 
life but, as a matter of fact, their living grew more 
careless, less pure. Already Peter, John and Paul 
would have been greatly astonished could they 
have come into some of the morning services of 
the Christian church. But still greater changes 
were about to take place. These changes seem 
to come suddenly but as one studies history he 
finds that no change comes suddenly. Sometimes 
the events of fifty years have been preparing for 
the moment in which some great event seems to 
happen. 

The church had never been wholly free from 
bitter persecution but after the year three hun- 
dred eleven, there came forty years of freedom. 
The people rebuilt the destroyed churches and 
rewrote the stories of Christ's life and words. 
The dying emperor prepared a statement declaring 
tolerance for the church and asked the Christians 
to pray for him. Constantine, the new emperor, 
had been with him when he ordered persecutions 
to cease and when he came to the throne, although 
he had not declared himself a Christian, the church 
felt that it was safe. Then came the great battle 
with a rival emperor and in the night Constantine 



Marching On 47 

had a vision. He seemed to see a shining cross in 
the sky and over it the words, " By This I Con- 
quer." In a dream that followed, Christ appeared 
and told him to make a new standard bearing the 
cross. So the cross was put upon the banner of 
the Emperor of Rome and was stamped upon the 
shields of his soldiers! Constantine was vic- 
torious and declared himself a Christian. 

The church that began in a house in Jerusalem, 
with the small group who had known and loved 
Christ, had come through poverty, danger and 
persecution to the throne of the imperial city of 
Rome and something of its spirit found its way 
into the laws of the great empire. Crucifixion as a 
punishment was forbidden and the cross upon 
which criminals had always been put to death 
became a sacred and holy thing — because upon a 
cross Jesus Christ had died. Gladiatorial games 
were forbidden, the rich were encouraged to follow 
the early Christians' example, set their slaves 
free and pay them wages, and laws were made 
giving more justice to the poor. Yet Constantine 
in his own life, though having so many virtues 
not common in the rulers of empires, was not 
simple, sincere and Christlike, and as you study 
your history in school, you will see that many 
crimes of fear, selfishness and hate are recorded in 
the story of his life. 



48 When You Enlist 

None of the noble army, when it was free and 
victorious, ever thought of persecuting the pagan 
people about them. They tried to teach, preach 
and live so that those who knew them would want 
to be Christians. They knew what it meant to be 
persecuted; they did not persecute. But after 
the death of Constantine — when the noble army, 
grown great and powerful, had lost much of its 
purity and nobility — they forgot its real mission, 
forgot that Jesus said the two great commands 
were, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God"; 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself " ; for- 
got what James had taught about true religion 
— " Pure religion and undefiled before our God 
and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and 
widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself 
unspotted from the world." So the noble army 
itself, the Christians, began to destroy temples, 
take away property, imprison and torture the 
pagan worshipers until only in Rome did the non- 
Christian still dare to offer incense and celebrate 
his feast days. Large numbers of the pagan 
world, unwilling to suffer for their faith, became 
Christian without any real change in their hearts, 
no warm love for Christ, no willingness to suffer 
hardship — they could not make good soldiers for 
any army. Some of them were selfish, ambitious 
men of the court, who sought for power. This 



Marching On 49 

made a great change in the church and, more and 
more, feast days and fast days, processions and 
ceremonies took the place of earnest prayer and 
valiant endeavor to live pure, true lives, to make 
the world better, happier and more like the king- 
dom of God that Christ said he came to build. 
Though many kept the faith, the noble army of 
the church found within itself a new and deadly 
enemy to fight. Still a great company marched 
steadily onward and made some progress in the 
task of making the world, not Christian in name 
but in fact, Christian — like Christ. 

The story of the next few hundred years is a 
long one but filled with so many thrilling scenes 
that as you study it in history and literature, in 
school and college, you will be fascinated 
by it. 

There was the great council held at Nicaea and 
attended by bishops, deacons, presbyters and 
churchmen from every part of the Christian 
world, wearing the rich robes and costumes of the 
various countries. There were great debates, 
exciting disputes, between the three parties who 
went to the council. They tried to put into words 
some of the things about Christ that they had 
come to believe. All could not agree as to what 
they believed and those who really did agree in 
thought, were unwilling to agree in words. At 



50 When You Enlist 

last enough came to an agreement to carry the 
vote for a statement known as the Nicene Creed. 
Arius and two of the Egyptian bishops could not 
agree to this statement and to make peace in the 
Council they were banished by the emperor. 
That was a sad day for the church when it allowed 
an emperor to banish some of its members because 
of some things which they honestly believed. 
Again they followed the example of the unchristian 
world which so long before had banished John 
to the island of Patmos. If the noble army had 
dreamed what trouble this act, which served as an 
example in the years to come, would bring to the 
church, they could never have done it. 

In spite of the vote, most churches preferred 
the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed was not 
generally accepted until a second council held in 
three hundred eighty-one, when it was perma- 
nently adopted. It is the great historic creed of 
the church. 

And now changes were very rapid. Emperors 
came and went in quick succession. Three times 
Alaric, the Goth, came to the gates of Rome. 
The first time, large sums of money sent him away; 
the second time he was allowed to choose the 
emperor who should sit upon the throne; but the 
third time, the city was pillaged, plundered and 
much of it destroyed. These tribes from the 



Marching On 51 

North under Alaric, were Christian, so the 
churches were spared. The pagan temples were 
completely destroyed or consecrated and made 
into Christian churches. In this time of terrible 
suffering and war, when the old government was 
destroyed, people turned to the church for leader- 
ship and defence and the Roman bishop became a 
very great power. 

A whole generation passed and Attila, the Hun, 
came to the gates of Rome. This time, Leo the 
first, the head of the church, went out to meet 
him, gave him a large ransom and sent him away. 
The city was saved and no one objected when, 
after this, Leo announced that he and his asso- 
ciates would decide all important questions for 
the church of the West. Up to this time, all the 
bishops of the western church were known to 
the people as Pope (meaning papa) but now it 
became the title of the Bishop of Rome alone. 
This was the beginning of the great power that 
the church of Rome was one day to have over all 
the Christian world. 

These were days when the noble army again 
and again lost sight of Christ. Only here and 
there did men long for the pure, strong challenge 
of his commands, the joy of service in his name. 
These prayed that the church might return to the 
simple faith of the early days. St. Augustine 



52 When You Enlist 

was one of them. Hating the terrible sins in his 
own life and in the life about him, suffering from 
great remorse, he went to the desert to try to live 
there a simple, Christian life of repentance, prayer 
and service. Jerome and Chrysostom tried to 
call men back to the ways of the first recruits, to 
help the church forget itself, banish all desire for 
great wealth and great worldly power and become 
what Jesus asked his followers to be — servants, 
living as he did, not to be ministered to but to 
minister. Others who felt the same way gradu- 
ally joined them and taking vows of poverty and 
purity, they lived together in monasteries. But 
alas, the day came when they themselves forgot 
the kind of kingdom Christ came to build and also 
sought riches and power. 

Sorrow and suffering again overtook the world 
when the Huns, determined to destroy Christian 
civilization, sent their armies out into every part 
of Europe. They called themselves the " Dread 
of the World " and the rest of the world called 
them the " Scourge of God." If we should follow 
their progress over Europe and picture truly the 
scenes of horror, we should not be able to look at 
them even in imagination. 

Then came the great day when the Romans 
and the Goths, fighting together that the Christian 
nations need not be utterly destroyed, won a great 



Marching On 53 

victory at Chalons and the civilized world was 
saved once more. 

While the soldiers fought with the Huns, the 
church struggled with all sorts of doctrines and 
beliefs and tried to put into words the puzzling 
conclusions reached by scholars and bishops, 
monks and Pope, about God, about Christ, the 
communion, baptism, sin and salvation, heaven and 
hell. When they succeeded in putting what they 
believed into words, the statement was accepted 
for awhile by the majority and all who refused to 
accept it were called heretics. Sometimes they were 
punished, more often banished from the church. 

If I were to copy most of these statements for 
you on this page, you would not understand them 
even though they were written in English. The 
words are so difficult, you would find it hard to 
pronounce them. There are some noble, simple, 
glorious statements of faith and love but most 
were not understood by any but the scholars and 
the clergy. How far, far from Christ's beautiful 
Sermon on the Mount and his words of sympathy, 
pardon and love they were! Yet they helped to 
bring some sort of unity into the church in a day 
when war made travel and intercourse very dif- 
ficult and led men to think about what they 
believed before they joined the church and 
promised to support it. 



54 When You Enlist 

In the East, the church was growing very weak. 
Justinian, who rebuilt the famous and beautiful 
St. Sofia at Constantinople, had been very intoler- 
ant and had compelled the pagans to be baptized 
and join the Christian church. People made 
members of the church in this way, never became 
loyal, faithful followers of Christ, showing in their 
lives what being a Christian really means. They 
followed the orders of whatever person happened 
to be in power without real sacrifice or deep devo- 
tion. 

During all these troubled years, the church, 
through its missionary work, was marching on. 
As Paul, by his difficult journeys, brought the 
gospel to Europe, monks and missionaries took 
it to Africa, banished bishops and churchmen took 
it to Persia. This was the period when our pagan 
ancestors, Celt, Scot and Pict, had the gospel story 
told to them. 

You will study in your school history, if you 
have not already done so, the entire story of Pope 
Gregory's work — how he became the central 
power for all the churches of Europe, how he 
established a court of appeal for all the church, 
how he sent spiritual advisers to the princes, how 
he organized work for the poor, how unceasingly 
he urged that all the people of all the world be 
made Christian. Although, later, the church at 



Marching On 55 

Rome abused all these privileges of leadership and 
used its power only for itself, at this time it kept 
the churches in touch with each other and brought 
back the desire of the first recruits to preach the 
gospel to every creature. 

While the people of Europe were facing the 
terrible hardships of war with real courage and the 
church, despite its many blunders, was making 
some progress, a little boy was born in the city of 
Mecca who, when he grew to manhood, pro- 
claimed himself the prophet of the One God and 
preached against idolatry and evil. No one in the 
great western empire dreamed what a part he was 
to play in their future history. His name was 
Mohammed and his rapid rise to great power reads 
like a fairy tale. People listened eagerly to his 
sermons and talks and later, with the rules for 
living which he preached, they wrote the Koran, 
the Bible of his followers who were called Moham- 
medans after his name. When he was persecuted 
for his teachings, he fled to Medina and thousands 
followed him. They were willing to fight for him. 
They did not teach. They compelled people to 
become Mohammedans or die by the sword. 

When Mohammed died in six hundred thirty- 
three, practically all Arabians were his declared 
followers. Then Syria, Egypt and Persia and 
parts of Palestine became Mohammedan and his 



56 When You Enlist 

successors ruled over a great empire which they 
determined to make even greater. For a time it 
seemed as if nothing could stop them as they swept 
over north Africa with their mighty sword and the 
cry, " Mohammed or death I" They went to Spain 
and crossed the Pyrenees to the south of France. 
On the eastern border of Europe they pressed on 
toward Constantinople. It seemed as though 
Christianity were doomed now to certain defeat. 

It was then, in that dark moment, that the 
Christian church stood together and in one of the 
greatest battles of history on the field at Tours, 
the Mohammedan army was overcome and the 
Christian Empire saved. Had it met defeat, how 
different the history of the world would have been ! 

How easy it seems for us to join the church 
today! To become one of the noble army means 
neither suffering, imprisonment, danger nor death. 
It is hard for us to realize, when as we study it, 
the onward march seems very slow, how many 
enemies there were who pressed upon it — pagan, 
Hun, Mohammedan in turn; how many enemies 
within it had to fight — superstition, ignorance, 
love of self, love of sin, desire for power, that 
threatened to destroy its purity and the strength 
which comes from righteousness. Yet tramp — 
tramp — tramp, step by step, it made its way 
through the world. When one company grew 



Marching On 57 

weak, some other company turning back to Christ 
became loyal, pure-hearted and true and again 
held the standard high. Now it is in your hands. 
You have become the church, you are the great 
new company in the noble army. Do you march 
to victory? What do you want to win? 

How earnestly we pray as we look at you — the 
young church, the hope of the Christian faith — 
that it is the kingdom you are determined to win, 
the kingdom of God, a world comforted by 
mercy and love, set free by justice and brother- 
hood! 

Despite the powerful enemies of our day, we 
know that under your leadership the church will 
keep steadily on. 

" New occasions teach new duties; Time makes 
ancient good uncouth; 
They must upward still, and onward, who 

would keep abreast of Truth; 
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we our- 
selves must Pilgrims be, 
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly 

through the desperate winter sea, 
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's 
blood-rusted key." 

You will keep the noble army marching on — 
nearer to God. 



Chapter V 
MEETING DEFEAT 



CHAPTER V 

Meeting Defeat 

One thousand years! It is a long time. But 
since those days when the first recruits of the 
noble army started out into the world with their 
message of good will to men, ten centuries have 
passed. When Peter preached his great sermon 
there was no church — in the year one thousand 
the story of the church had become the history of 
the world. When the ruler in those first days of 
Paul's preaching cried out, " These who turn the 
world upside down have come here also," his 
hearers did not dream that he spoke the very 
truth. Europe was Christian now, at least in 
name. On Christmas day, in the year eight 
hundred, Charlemagne, the king of the Franks, 
had been crowned emperor of the Romans and his 
empire called the Holy Roman Empire. The 
Pope had crowned him and Charlemagne called 
himself Defender of the Church. So the Holy 
Catholic Church, as it was now called, with the 
Pope of Rome at its head, went side by side with 
the emperor as he conquered his enemies. Wher- 
ever his warfare brought victory, there the 



62 When You Enlist 

church, the school and the monastery were started. 
All these churches declared their loyalty to Rome. 
He made the giving of money, gifts and offerings 
compulsory and this enriched the treasury of 
Rome. 

During the thousand years, a great many new 
customs, as we have seen, crept into the church, 
both in Constantinople and Rome. After much 
discussion, sacred pictures had been hung in the 
church at Constantinople and candles and incense 
were burned before them just as they were once 
burned before the many gods of the pagan world. 
Images followed, images of the apostles, the 
great leaders of the church, images of Christ. 
The worship of the saints and of Mary the mother 
of Jesus began, and the people confessed their sins 
to the priests. There were many disputes and 
discussions about these things. Sometimes a 
ruler forbade their use and images and pictures 
were removed. Other rulers put tliem back and 
at last they were accepted by the majority of the 
church. There were those in the noble army who 
felt very deeply that all this was wrong. They 
declared it was almost as bad as pagan worship. 
They felt that in this return to the worship of 
things that could be seen with the eye, the church 
would soon forget that " God is a Spirit: and they 
that worship him must worship him in spirit and 



Meeting Defeat 63 

in truth." They feared that kneeling before a 
picture to pray might lead the people away from 
the simple, earnest prayer Jesus taught his disci- 
ples, from his way of speaking to God in the fields, 
in the mountains, by the lake, with no candle, 
image or priest. That there was reason for their 
fears, the later story of the church showed. 
Large numbers of Christians began to believe that 
a miracle took place whenever the bread and wine 
were given at the communion service, that they 
were changed in some mysterious way into the 
body and blood of Christ. Those who could not 
believe in this doctrine which was called by a 
long, hard name which you who study Latin will 
understand — transubstantiation — tried to teach 
that the bread and wine were symbols of a great 
spiritual experience, but they were outnumbered 
and the church taught that those who did not 
believe in this mystical change were heretics; 
many times they were dismissed from member- 
ship, excommunicated. 

It was the teaching of these mysteries and the 
belief in superstitions enough to fill many books 
that created the enemy within the church that 
threatened to destroy the noble army. The multi- 
tude of ceremonies left little time or thought for 
the humble, brave, pure-hearted, courageous Christ 
who had taught his disciples so great a gospel. 



64 When You Enlist 

One by one the old type leaders of the church 
died and a new sort of pope presided over the 
church at Rome. Many of them were most un- 
worthy men who won their position because of 
influence and power. The monasteries forgot 
their vows of poverty and service and began to live 
like all the world. Now and then a pure-hearted, 
earnest, simple lover of Christ would try to pull 
the church back to the old days of righteousness; 
good monks tried to persuade their brothers to 
return to the old life of sacrifice and prayer but 
only here and there did they meet with success. 
The life of Rome grew so wicked that men said, 
" The morals of Rome are the horror of the world." 
People had the opportunity to see what life would 
be without real religion. 

It was during these days that many places con- 
nected with the life of Christ and the apostles 
became holy shrines to which pilgrims from all 
over the world went to worship, hoping that in this 
way their sins might be forgiven. Many, over- 
come by the thought of their sin, no longer 
remembering or never having been told what 
Christ taught about forgiveness, punished them- 
selves for the evil things that troubled their 
consciences. They called this doing penance. 
Sometimes the penance was cruel and caused great 
suffering. One devoted man learned and recited 



Meeting Defeat 65 

forty psalms and, at the close of the recital of each 
psalm, scourged himself with one hundred lashes 
upon his bare back. One can hardly read today 
of the penances by which even the girls and women 
tried to feel pardon for sin. How far from Christ 
they were! How little they understood him who 
said to the woman who sinned so deeply, " Neither 
do I condemn thee: go thy way; from hence- 
forth sin no more !" There was no one to remind 
them of the simple words of Jesus, no one to re- 
mind them that Jesus said, " Come unto me . . . 
I will give you rest." So they came, offering 
jewels, rich tapestries, gold, land, to the church, 
that they might be assured of forgiveness. 

By the year one thousand, the morning service 
of the church had become very elaborate. There 
were long recitals of prayers in Latin and responses 
were given by the people. Organs were used in 
the churches, masses were said for the sick and 
for the dead. 

Many people thought the end of the world was 
near and traveled to Jerusalem where they believed 
Jesus might any day come back to earth. Trouble 
between the churches of the East under the au- 
thority of Constantinople and churches of the West 
under the Pope continued until soon after the 
thousand years had passed, they were completely 
divided with the Patriarch at Constantinople 



66 When You Enlist 

the head of the church of the East and the 
Pope at Rome as the head of the church of the 
West. 

When Hildebrand became Pope, he tried to free 
the church from the power of the emperor and the 
court. He wanted to make it greater, thinking 
that if it gained supreme power, it could command 
the world, compel it to repent of its sin and do 
right. Most of you know the story of how Hilde- 
brand proved the power of the church for a time 
by making King Henry IV stand three days in the 
snow, clad only in thin robes of sackcloth, that 
he might receive forgiveness from the Pope and 
keep his kingdom. Though Hildebrand himself 
was later sent into exile, the thing that he had done 
to the king to show the authority of the church 
was remembered and later popes tried to follow his 
example. 

But though the church seemed so powerful, 
we remember that it was not making people good 
or bringing justice and happiness to the world. 
Religion no longer meant to the majority what it 
meant to the early Christians who did their work 
faithfully, preached the gospel, loved one another, 
made life very simple and very happy and when 
the challenge came, died for their faith with great 
courage. Even St. Bernard, who was unselfish 
and pure-hearted and longed to make the church 



Meeting Defeat 67 

powerful only that it might serve better, was not 
able to save it from defeat. 

For a time, the Crusaders, leaving home with 
the high purpose of rescuing the holy places of 
Palestine from the Mohammedans and saving 
the pilgrims to holy places from the tortures of the 
Turks, stirred men's souls and made them think 
of Christ whom they had almost forgotten. But 
even the Crusaders were used by the Pope and 
clergy to gain more power. The Holy Land was 
not won, countless crusaders never came back 
and their property went to the church. It 
became exceedingly rich and its riches and love 
of ease blotted out the memory of its great mis- 
sion to the world. It taught fear, not love, and the 
noble army lost its joy. When religion does not 
give freedom and joy, it is not the religion that 
Jesus came to give to the world. So true religion 
was, for a time, defeated, and fear, selfishness, 
greed and hate ruled over men's hearts. 

Struggling slowly back from the Crusades, 
officers and soldiers, kings and slaves, met the 
people of other lands, talked with them and began 
to think. When men begin to think, they are no 
longer defeated. The noble army, in the midst 
of its defeat, was saved by those who began to 
think for themselves, who thought they had dis- 
covered truth and were willing to die for it. They 



68 When You Enlist 

thought over the words of the Pope who said he 
was " below God, above man; Judge of all, 
judged by none." They did not believe it was 
true. They refused to accept longer any of the 
superstitions and confusing doctrines. They 
wanted to know more than anything else in the 
world what Jesus had said. When the members 
of the noble army want to know that, the army can 
be saved. They wanted to know also what James, 
John, Peter and the other disciples had taught, 
but they could not go to the Bible to see. There 
was no book of the Old and New Testament lying 
on a convenient table. Beautiful copies of the 
Scriptures, written on vellum and exquisitely 
illuminated, were owned by the church. But 
they could not be read, for not one was written in 
the spoken language or dialect of the men who 
wanted to read it. 

One of those who wanted to know the truth was 
a very wealthy merchant named Waldo. One 
day he went to the priest in the cathedral at 
Lyons. " Which is the surest way to heaven? " 
he asked. The priest answered, " If thou wilt be 
perfect, go and sell whatever thou hast, give to the 
poor, and thou shalt find treasure in heaven." 
Waldo provided for the care of his wife and daugh- 
ters, then sold all that he had. He wanted to 
read the Gospels for himself so, out of a part of his 



Meeting Defeat 69 

money, he paid two scholars to translate them and 
other parts of the New Testament into his own 
language. He read and reread the story of 
Christ's simple life and he read too the command, 
" Go preach the gospel to every creature." He 
saw that the church was not preaching it. So he 
formed a society called " The Poor Men of Lyons." 
They dressed in coarse clothing and wore wooden 
shoes. They read the Scriptures, they preached 
on the streets, they served the poor and the sick 
and tried to live as nearly like Christ as they 
could. The people followed them as they used to 
follow Jesus and they believed in what they heard 
as eagerly as the people of olden days had believed 
in the message of Peter, John and Paul. 

When the church heard of these things, it said 
that such preaching and teaching must stop; 
that no one but those appointed and trained by 
the church would be permitted to read the Scrip- 
tures or teach the people. That command, given 
by the Pope, proved a great mistake on the part 
of the church, for " The Poor Men " did not stop. 
They were persecuted and imprisoned and their 
followers, like those of the early apostles, were 
obliged to flee to far countries. Everywhere they 
went, they preached the new doctrine of a faith 
that would prove its sincerity by deeds of kindness 
and love, by lives of strength and purity and of a 



70 When You Enlist 

church as simple as that of the early apostles. 
They called themselves Waldensians in honor of 
the merchant preacher, Waldo, and in spite of the 
bitter persecution, they grew in numbers and in 
spiritual power. As late as sixteen hundred 
eighty-six, a terrible massacre of these simple, 
loyal, earnest Christians took place and over six 
thousand met their death, but what they had 
taught still lived and their purifying influence 
helped save the noble army. 

Assuming more and more authority over princes 
and kings, the church continued its life of ease and 
pleasure, not realizing that it was losing its soul. 
It might have been said of the church of that day 
as it was to one of an older day, " Thou say est, 
I am rich, and increased with goods, and have 
need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art 
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and 
naked." 

It was about this time that the Mendicant 
Orders of Friars were formed. Francis of Assisi 
was the leader of one order and Dominic, an 
earnest young Spaniard, the leader of another. 
These young men both believed that the church 
was not following Christ and that it must go back 
to him. St. Francis founded the Gray Friars, 
called so because of their gray robes, and Dominic 
founded the Black Friars. They went about 



Meeting Defeat 71 

teaching, from village to village, and preaching the 
gospel to the poor. They did countless deeds of 
love and mercy and lived pure, noble lives. 
Because of its experience with the Waldensians, 
the church did not command these men to cease 
their preaching but led them to take vows and 
connected their orders closely with itself. St. 
Francis was one of the most beautiful and unselfish 
men of the church. But after Francis and Domi- 
nic were dead, these orders of Friars grew rich and 
powerful, ceased to live as they had been taught 
and lost their great passion to save and serve the 
world. 

The hunger to know the truth about Christ, 
about what he taught and how he meant his 
followers to live, could be found everywhere 
throughout the church. Earnest, sincere people 
who tried to obey in their own lives all his known 
commands, continued to save the church from 
absolute defeat. Scholars all over Europe became 
interested again in the doctrines of the church. 
One of the greatest of these was Thomas Aquinas. 
There was no problem of doctrine he was not 
eager to discuss and about every puzzling question 
he earnestly prayed. He was a real help to the 
noble army because he too made it think and have 
reasons for what it said it believed. He longed to 
help it escape from the superstitions that were 



72 When You Enlist 

keeping it from going back to the early Christian 
faith. If it had followed him, it might have been 
saved some of the darkest pages in its history, for 
the great catholic (which you remember, in the 
beginning, meant universal) church was doomed to 
be divided and broken. Its greatest enemy was 
itself, its own ambition, its love of luxury, wealth 
and power, the unwillingness of its leaders to 
follow the simple faith taught by Jesus Christ in 
Palestine. There came a day when defeat met 
the heads of the church and the Pope and papal 
court were sent into exile. A French pope sat 
in the great church at Rome, obedient to King 
Philip. Page after page of the story of the church 
of that period is a record of criticism, persecution 
and hate. The popes are banished and return, they 
gain power and lose it, buy it and sell it and the 
saving faith in the simple Christ of the Gospels was 
lost to thousands who could no longer trust the 
church yet knew nowhere else to go. The church 
service had become a dead thing of form and cere- 
mony. Even the best thinkers were confused and 
puzzled, while many confessed their doubt of all 
things. They were like the troubled souls in 
Richard Watson Gilder's poem — 



Meeting Defeat 73 

" Thou Christ, my soul is hurt and bruised ! 
With words the scholars wear me out; 
My brain o'erwearied and confused, 
Thee, and myself, and all I doubt. 



" And must I back to darkness go 
Because I cannot say their creed? 
I know not what I think; I know 
Only that thou art what I need." 

Everywhere, men and women were saying in 
many different ways, " Thou art what I need." 
Everywhere they were searching for this Christ 
whom they could not find because the church 
taught about itself and not about him. 

But though the great army itself had met with 
defeat, within it were strong, brave, pure hearts — 
men and boys, the matron and the maid, who were 
coming to its rescue, who were to bring it new life 
and power and send it out again, as you will see, 
to battle against sin, to change its defeat to 
victory. 



Chapter VI 
THE UNDAUNTED 



CHAPTER VI 

The Undaunted 

Men have always been great and small, good 
and bad, quite as they are today. One never 
looks at man at his worst without finding, in con- 
trast, man at his very best. In one selfishness 
rules, in another sacrifice rules, in one hatred, in 
another love. Man at his worst makes one blush 
for humanity but man at his best is fine and noble, 
worthy the respect and high honor of his fellows. 
History never yet has recorded a period so dark 
that great souls did not rise above its darkness and 
bring it light. Their names are on an honor roll 
at which the world looks with pride. Undis- 
mayed by the strength of the enemy or the seeming 
impossibility of the task, they dare attempt any- 
thing that promises relief for their burdened 
fellow men. They are the undaunted. They are 
like St. Paul. You will remember that once he 
reminded the people of Corinth, when they were 
losing courage, of the way in which he had himself 
faced apparent disaster and defeat. " Thrice 
was I beaten with rods," he says, " once was 
I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night 



78 When You Enlist 

and a day I have been in the deep; in journey- 
ings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, 
in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by 
the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the 
wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among 
false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in 
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings 
often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things 
that are without, that which cometh upon me 
daily, the care of all the churches." But none 
of these things moved him; his dauntless spirit 
triumphed. 

As the centuries passed, the list of those who, in 
moments of peril, saved the faith of the noble 
army, grew so long that we can do little more than 
mention a few about whom every young recruit 
should know. Whole books have been written 
about many of them. When you want to read a 
thrilling tale of courage, adventure and triumph, 
go to your library and get the story of the life of 
some one of these great heroes in the struggle for 
justice, freedom and true religion. 

One of the first names in the honor list is John 
Wycliffe, born near Yorkshire in England about 
thirteen hundred twenty-four. He graduated 
from Oxford and became a brilliant young teacher 
of theology and the Bible. He was appointed a 
member of the court and was one of the commis- 



The Undaunted 79 

sioners of the king. The Pope and church at 
Rome were not pleased with his new doctrines 
nor were many of their followers in England, but 
because he had such powerful friends, those 
who condemned his teachings were not able 
to kill him although they finally succeeded in 
taking away his position as instructor in the 
college. 

Young Wycliffe had become convinced, through 
his earnest study of the Scriptures, of several 
things which he succeeded in leading great 
numbers of people in England and many all over 
Europe, to believe with him. He taught that the 
Scriptures were the only law of the church. He 
said that these writings demanded pure, honest, 
unselfish living and that lives of Christians were 
the things by which the church must be tested. 
He said that the church had no right to strive for 
power, for great riches or for authority in govern- 
ing men and nations. He declared that the leaders 
of the church should be humble followers of Christ, 
going about doing good, caring for rich and poor, 
helping men to conquer themselves and their sins. 
He reminded them of that saying of Christ, 
repeated by him so often, " The greatest in my 
kingdom is the servant of all." 

Wycliffe organized groups of men as St. Francis 
had done and taught them to preach. He sent 



80 When You Enlist 

them out two by two as Jesus had sent out groups 
of his followers. They wore long, coarse robes 
and each carried a staff in his hand as the Francis- 
cans had done. But, like the Waldensians, they 
took no vows. Great crowds listened eagerly to 
their preaching but, more than that, they began to 
reform their lives. 

Wycliffe soon determined that the people should 
have the Bible in their own hands, translated into 
English, that any one who could read might see for 
himself just what it said. So with others to help 
him, he set to work upon his great task. A friend 
translated the Old Testament and Wycliffe prob- 
ably translated the New Testament. No one can 
measure the effect this had upon the people. 
Great numbers of the New Testaments were sold; 
the poor learned to read so that they might read 
the Bible. Sometimes one person read to a whole 
company in a little village by the sea or in the 
hills. Often he read some favorite story or chapter 
so many times that his hearers could repeat it and 
teach it to their children. 

All this was most displeasing to Rome. They 
said Wycliffe was " casting pearls before swine." 
But the Pope and the clergy had to content them- 
selves with words of condemnation. The friends 
in England protected Wycliffe. Thirty years 
after his death, his body was taken from its burial- 



The Undaunted 81 

place, burned and the ashes, with words of hate 
and scorn, thrown into the River Swift that carried 
them to the sea. People who read his Bible were 
punished and the books burned. In spite of this, 
about one hundred fifty copies are in existence 
today and John Wycliffe's name remains upon the 
list of the undaunted. He won the respect of all 
the world for his brilliant scholarship. He was 
a great patriot to whom threats of death meant 
nothing and he was a true follower of the simple 
gospel he preached. 

John Huss is another name upon the honor list 
of the undaunted. His parents were peasants of 
Bohemia who determined to educate their son 
and train him for the church. He graduated at 
Prague and, like Wycliffe, became a teacher in his 
own university. Later he was ordained a priest, 
still keeping his position as teacher. He studied 
Wycliffe's doctrines very earnestly and was con- 
vinced that what he taught was true. When he 
became a preacher in Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, 
he preached in the Bohemian language instead of 
conducting the service in Latin, so that all the 
people understood his sermons. He preached 
very fiery sermons. He criticized the Pope, the 
church, the monks and all who failed to preach 
and teach the gospel in the simple fashion by which 
it was given to the world through the apostles. 



82 When You Enlist 

For these things he was excommunicated and 
compelled to leave Prague. 

When the great Council of Constance met, 
John Huss was commanded to appear before it. 
His friends, fearing for his safety, urged him not 
to obey, but he thought it was his duty to go and 
speak bravely for the truth as the early apostles 
did. He hoped he could persuade some of the 
Council to believe with him. But almost as soon 
as he arrived in Constance, he was imprisoned, a 
little later condemned and burned at the stake. 
He endured his sufferings with great courage, 
declaring his willingness to die as did the apostles 
for his faith in Christ and his gospel. Young 
men, standing in the crowd watching as Paul had 
watched Stephen, marvelled at his courage, at 
his words of love and forgiveness instead of hate, 
and many accepted his faith and went out all over 
Bohemia preaching it. 

One of those who earnestly studied the gospel as 
John Huss taught it was a young Dominican monk 
who preached in Florence. Although he never 
left the Roman church, he paid the dreadful 
penalty which the church demanded for preaching 
against it. So powerful was his preaching that 
the people burned their evil books in the square, 
hundreds gave up their extravagant lives and 
spent their time in deeds of love and mercy. 



The Undaunted 83 

But the Pope, whose wicked life he had criticized, 
hated him and commanded that he be punished. 
He was bribed by offers of high position in the 
church to give up preaching his sermons of con- 
demnation but refused. " Your sins," he said 
to the leaders of the church, " have made me a 
prophet." False reports of a confession which it 
was said he had made under terrible agony, led 
many of his friends to forsake him and after being 
most cruelly tortured, he was hanged and his body 
burned. It is almost impossible for us to under- 
stand how these things could be done in the name 
of the Christian church. But, like that of John 
Huss, Savonarola's death only meant more con- 
verts to the faith he preached. The Roman 
church itself later repented of what it had done 
to Savonarola and Raphael was ordered to 
place his likeness in the famous fresco at 
Florence. 

The great Italian Renaissance about which you 
have studied in school was nearing its close, the 
church still struggling for power, still loving 
wealth, ease and luxury. In England, the church 
had freed itself of much of the power of Rome, as 
had Spain, but the rest of the Western churches 
of Europe were still loyal to it. 

Printing was invented. Three little words! 
But they changed the history of the world. Hun- 



84 When You Enlist 

dreds of copies of any part of the Bible could now 
be made for the cost of one of the copies made so 
carefully by hand — for to copy by hand the book 
of John or the book of Romans took a long time 
and would not be a task that any of us would 
welcome. As the art of printing became known, 
the New Testament was printed in French, later 
the whole Bible. Parts of it were printed in 
Spanish and two versions in Italian. The Nether- 
lands and Bohemia had printed editions. People 
everywhere were reading the book but as yet the 
great majority did not think as they read. They 
believed that the words which they found hard to 
understand must mean just what the church 
taught. The great majority of the Christian 
world, led by the church at Rome, as we have seen, 
worshiped Mary, the mother of Jesus, and con- 
fessed their sins to the priest, not daring to ask 
God for forgiveness; they still thought of Christ 
as a strict, harsh judge whose forgiveness and favor 
would come through penance, offerings, rich gifts 
to the church and difficult pilgrimages to holy 
places. Yet great changes had been made by the 
Renaissance, as you know, changes in knowledge, 
in art, in literature and in the power of the scholars 
to think for themselves. But far greater changes 
than those of the Renaissance were to come. A 
new name which every church of the Protestant 



The Undaunted 85 

world will always remember was to be written 
upon the honor list of the undaunted. 

In fourteen hundred eighty- three, just nine years 
before Columbus discovered America, a boy was 
born in the simple, peasant home of a German 
miner. His parents had great ambitions for their 
little son and, though poor, were determined to 
educate him and fit him to be a lawyer. His name 
was Martin Luther, the name that was to change 
the history of religion, for Martin did not be- 
come a lawyer but a priest. The sudden death 
of his dearest friend and his own narrow escape 
from death by lightning decided him to become a 
priest and he entered a monastery of the St. 
Augustine order. 

Every one of you interested in the story of the 
noble army, must read for himself the lif e of Martin 
Luther, for I can give you only a little of it here. 
It is full of heroic experiences — his first visit 
to Rome and what he said when he saw the great 
dome of St. Peter's, what he thought as he read 
the Bible in his little monastery cell, his appoint- 
ment as lecturer in the University at Wittenberg 
and later, because he showed remarkable gifts as a 
preacher and had a splendid reputation among all 
who knew him, his position at the head of eleven 
monasteries. Honor and prosperity had come to 
him through the church. But he was not happy. 



86 When You Enlist 

He felt the burden of all the sin and selfishness 
he saw about him. He felt the burden of his own 
sin and he had no personal knowledge of the love 
and mercy of God. The church had forgotten the 
story of the Prodigal Son. Then suddenly, with 
the help of a friend, he saw that the " good news " 
which Jesus asked his disciples to preach was the 
" forgiveness of sins." God became suddenly 
what Jesus said he was — an understanding 
Father, eager to save all his children. Luther read 
the beautiful promises of forgiveness and help and 
his soul was filled with happiness and joy. He 
loved God. 

With this new idea of God, Martin Luther was 
obliged to oppose many things in the church. 
One was a custom which it had established of 
selling " indulgences." Under this custom, when 
a person had committed a sin, he might, for a 
certain sum paid or gift given to the church, receive 
a letter of pardon. Luther felt that this must not 
continue and opposed it boldly. He preached 
especially against Tetzel, a man who sold these 
indulgences without teaching the need of repen- 
tance. 

Luther wanted to debate the whole question of 
forgiveness, pardons and many other things, so he 
went to the door of the church as you would go to 
the bulletin board in school and nailed upon it the 



The Undaunted 87 

paper upon which he had written ninety-five 
statements for debate. These are known in his- 
tory as the " Ninety-Five Theses." 

The great changes in the story of the church 
made by those Theses which were soon being read 
all over Germany, is one of the most interesting 
records of history. 

At first the Pope in Rome paid no attention to 
the complaints about Luther, for he had not 
accused the Pope of selling indulgences, but only 
his representatives, Tetzel and others. But 
finally the Pope was persuaded that Luther was a 
dangerous person and sent a representative to 
command him to cease teaching the doctrines 
named in the Theses. Luther said he must preach 
them because he believed them true. The Pope 
then declared him a heretic. Luther appealed to 
a Council. In thinking the matter over, he 
decided that no Council has any right whatever 
to tell a man what he must believe but only the 
right to teach him what he may believe — that the 
Bible, not the Council, was the standard of truth. 
He made these statements in a great public debate. 

The Pope now told Luther that, within sixty 
days, he must repent and take back all he had said 
in the Theses. " This I cannot do," said Luther 
and burned the letter containing the command. 

One more opportunity was given to young 



88 When You Enlist 

Luther to save himself — he was summoned to 
Wurais where a great company of princes, doctors 
and priests, presided over by the emperor, had 
met to command him to take back his Theses. 
They hoped that in the presence of that great, 
brilliant, hostile company of royalty and men of 
learning, the young monk would retract. But he 
was without fear. He was quiet and modest, and 
seemed often to be praying as he waited. But 
when the moment came that he should rise and 
recant, he said the words that the Protestant 
church will always remember. 

" Unless I am convinced by Scripture and reason, 
I cannot retract anything. Here I take my stand. 
I cannot do otherwise. So help me God. Amen." 

There was a great silence when Martin Luther 
finished. The emperor and his company talked 
over what he had said and declared their agree- 
ment with the Pope — that Luther was a heretic. 

But Luther was not to die as the brave John 
Huss had died. Friends disguised themselves, 
captured him and took him safely away to a 
castle in Wartburg where he lived for a year and 
worked on a translation of the Bible into the com- 
mon German tongue. 

There came a day when the city of Wittenberg, 
under the protection of friendly rulers, asked 
Luther to return. He preached for eight days tell- 



The Undaunted 89 

ing the people that " the just shall live by faith, 
Christ can and will forgive sins and that Chris- 
tians must love their neighbors." Great numbers 
believed him and welcomed such a gospel with 
joy. Those who accepted his teaching, built their 
churches and schools, wrote new services, learned 
the hymns that Luther wrote and called them- 
selves after his name, Lutherans. 

Many sorrowful and difficult days were ahead 
for Luther and the new church. Rulers of the 
empire changed, the government fell into new 
hands and the Roman church which had in so 
many places been banished and its property taken, 
was permitted to come back. Luther's followers 
protested against this in a great, formal protest, 
but they were defeated. Because they protested 
so vigorously, they were called " The Protes- 
tants/' as all non-Roman Catholic Christians are 
called to this day. 

You will read in the life of Luther about his 
marriage, about his little son, about the books and 
the beautiful hymns that he wrote. It is a most 
interesting story. So Luther escaped death at 
the hands of his enemies and died at the age of 
sixty-three, in the little town where he was born. 
He lived long enough to hear his faith preached 
and his hymns sung all over Germany and to 
know that people in many other lands had accepted 



90 When You Enlist 

his teachings and called themselves by his name. 
Fearless, honest, sincere, unselfish and kindly, 
undaunted by emperors, kings and popes, he stood 
bravely for his faith and more than any one man 
influenced the history of the Western church. 

What Luther began in Germany, John Calvin, 
another of the company of the undaunted, did in 
Switzerland and John Knox did later in Scotland. 
There is no more fascinating story in church 
history than John Calvin teaching, preaching, 
setting up his new government in Geneva. 

The record of the desperate struggle for freedom 
for the church in England and Scotland is a story 
of most bitter and terrible persecution. Hate 
stalked like a triumphant tyrant through the land. 
When the Catholic group was in power, the 
Protestants suffered every humiliation, their prop- 
erty was taken, they were tortured, tormented and 
put to death. When the Protestants were in 
power, the Catholics received the same treatment 
at their hands. 

Slowly, so very slowly that all but the un- 
daunted grew discouraged, the world was trying 
to learn to permit men to choose the way in which 
they should worship God and to decide for them- 
selves what they should believe. When the early 
disciples told the people stories of Jesus, his words, 
his teachings, his acts, their listeners felt great 



The Undaunted 91 

confidence in what they said, for they had seen 
Jesus and heard him speak. Later, those who 
taught the people had known intimately the men 
who knew Jesus and they had confidence also in 
them. But when all these men were dead and 
the worship of God changed into an elaborate 
service where Christ was almost forgotten, as you 
have seen, Christianity grew weak and only the 
few undaunted souls kept it from utter defeat. 
Now the printing-press and the Bible translated 
into common tongues brought the words of Christ 
and the teachings of the apostles back to the 
people. But as they read the book, to some the 
words meant one thing, to others quite the 
opposite. There were no disciples to whom they 
could appeal and say, " What was it that Jesus 
meant when he said . . . ? " So, because of 
differing interpretations, many groups were formed 
within the Protestant church. Sometimes they 
disagreed over very little things, sometimes over 
things that must affect the whole future of the 
faith. Calvin said certain verses of Scripture 
meant one thing and would change the whole 
government of the church. John Knox said it 
meant an entirely different thing and many fol- 
lowed his teaching. But amidst all the disagree- 
ment, the common people were learning about 
Christ, believing in him and trying to obey him. 



92 When You Enlist 

Just as the pagans, becoming Christian, wanted 
to keep the feasts and burn the incense because 
they enjoyed or loved the old way of worship, 
so some of the Roman Catholics who became con- 
vinced of the truth of the new doctrines, wanted 
to keep parts of the service or parts of the govern- 
ment which were dear to them. Others, like 
George Fox, a most wonderful Christian, said that 
everything connected with the old forms of wor- 
ship was wrong and all must be left behind. So 
you who, today, unite with the church, find it 
divided into many groups each with its own way 
of worship and its own interpretation of the Bible. 
The Anglican church, the Episcopal church, the 
Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, 
Quakers and so many others one cannot name them 
all, came into being after Luther nailed his Theses 
to the door of the old church at Wittenberg. 
Many came into being after the King James 
version of the Bible was put into the hands of the 
people. Some lasted but a little while and then 
died out. Man was trying very hard to stand for 
freedom, to give his brothers the rights he claimed 
for himself. So there were churches with bishops 
and churches with no bishops; churches with a 
book of common prayer and a litany, and churches 
with only simple singing of psalms and reading of 
Scripture. There were very beautiful church 



The Undaunted 93 

buildings and plain, unadorned buildings even 
more simple than those of the early church. Each 
group felt that it had discovered the truth and it 
loved and honored the heroic, undaunted souls who 
founded it. You who read this page may have 
joined or will join churches that differ greatly in 
name and service and doctrine. You should know 
the founders of your church, you should 
know about their special work in the noble army 
and honor them for their courage and their willing- 
ness to teach their faith or to suffer and die for it. 

You must learn also what some of us, long 
members of the army, have not learned — how to 
respect the faith of those who differ with you and 
how to love and honor all members of the noble 
army, that it may be said of you as it was of the 
early Christians, that by this you know that they 
have been with Christ, because they love their 
brothers. 

I confess that when I read over the names on the 
honor roll of the undaunted souls of the noble 
army, I turn with deepest reverence to a little 
group in which there are many great names. 
They left the kindly shores of Holland where they 
had fled for refuge, stopped for a while at their old 
home, and then, one hundred and two of them, in a 
ship so small that one hardly dare think of even 
sailing along the coast in it today, they crossed 



94 When You Enlist 

the wide, lonely ocean — no steamship lane with 
boats greeting one another by wireless across the 
waves; no help if distress should come. It took 
them many long weeks to cross. It takes me six 
days or less. 

They landed on a cold, bleak shore with only 
the bitter wind in the trees, the cry of wild beasts, 
the stealthy tread of savages to welcome them. 
But it is not for that I honor them most. Other 
heroic groups had braved the danger of forest and 
savage and sea. Other groups had left the homes 
they dearly loved. But there was something 
different about this group. It was the greatness 
of the purpose for which they came that I honor 
them with so deep a reverence. I find no words 
to express it. They came to establish a home, 
not where they alone should be safe from persecu- 
tion by their enemies but a refuge to which all men 
might come and " worship God according to the 
dictates of their own consciences." Later comers 
in other companies, more than once, forgot the 
high purpose of these Pilgrim seekers of liberty 
and justice for all and drove honest worshipers 
from the colonies of New England, but in the main, 
this new land, discovered while the old world was 
in the midst of cruel persecutions, became a safe 
harbor of protection and freedom. To it the 
heroic Huguenots came. The Quakers found com- 



The Undaunted 95 

fort in its liberty. Whenever persecution abroad 
brought pain and suffering to earnest souls, the 
Atlantic offered a highway to the promised land — 
and they came to it by fifties, hundreds, thousands, 
until churches of many names were built in the 
forests of New England, in the mountains of 
Virginia, throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey 
and New York. 

That freedom is your great inheritance. Neither 
sword, nor wild beast, nor tidal river, nor stake 
with fagots ready to be lighted, awaits you; no 
government stands ready to banish or imprison 
you, as you unite with the church you have chosen 
and become a member of the noble army. Look 
with reverence at the names on the long list of the 
undaunted who, through their sufferings, won this 
liberty for you. Think with gratitude of the 
thousands of other undaunted souls, men and 
boys, women and girls, whose names we do not 
know but whose faithfulness, courage and right- 
eousness entitle them also to a place upon the great 
honor roll; " their names," says the prophet, 
" are known in heaven." 

The sword and the fire are not here, but 
selfishness is in the world, jealousy is here, hate is 
here; the foes of that gospel which Jesus gave to 
his disciples still five, the victory has not yet 
been won. It is your battle now. They, all 



96 When You Enlist 

young when they started out upon the road of 
courage, have flung the torch to you. It is you 
who must keep up the struggle for liberty and 
justice but most of all for love. Not the weak and 
sentimental thing we sometimes call by that name 
but the love that understands, shares and serves. 
Hope will help the world, faith will give it strength, 
but love will save it. 

Last month I heard three thousand young 
people, every one a member of the church, singing 
a hymn. The words rang out gloriously clear and 
strong : — 

" Faith of our fathers, we will love 
Both friend and foe in all our strife, 
And preach thee too, as love knows how, 
By kindly words and virtuous life. 
Faith of our fathers — holy faith, 
We will be true to thee till death." 

They were in earnest, it was a promise, a pledge. 
Will you join them? If enough of you will, 
what a triumphant victory the new company of 
the undaunted will some day bring to the needy 
world! 



Chapter VII 
I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE 



CHAPTER VII 

I Pledge Allegiance 

No one could stand overseas during the war and 
watch long lines of our khaki-clad boys moving 
up to the front to meet danger, agony and death, 
see the brave young faces on which was no trace of 
the coward, hear them call out words of laughing 
challenge to each other as they marched on and 
on through the rain, the mud, the cold, without a 
feeling of pride that these were Americans. No 
one could see our boys come back — those who 
did come back — from the field, wounded and 
suffering, with no word of bitterness or complaint, 
but instead, some terribly wounded boy insisting 
that his neighbor be cared for first, without saying 
to himself, " and this is America." No one could 
witness the indomitable courage of some one of our 
boys in the hospital as he heard the verdict given 
as gently as possible, but telling him the terrible 
truth, " You will never see again," without saying 
to himself in silent and solemn pride, " i^Te is an 
American. " When one saw our men in khaki in 
the streets of Paris and London where temptations 
to sin and shame were so great that only the 



100 When You Enlist 

strongest could overcome them and watched boys 
again and again resolutely pass by, refusing to 
lower their standards or lose their characters, one 
rejoiced that these were Americans. 

When one saw our nurses in hospitals calmly 
doing their work while the shrapnel from the air 
raids fell about them, when he saw young women 
come from behind the lines after driving for long 
hours the field ambulances filled with wounded, 
to the place where life might be given back to 
them, it was with deepest gratitude that he said, 
" America has made these also." 

I was glad in those great and terrible days to be 
an American; not because war is right or ought 
to be the way by which men test their heroes; 
war is wrong, war is deadly waste, war is an 
unreasonable way for thinking human beings to 
settle their disputes and differences; it was 
because men, young and eager to live, with the 
right to be happy in work or study or play, were 
great enough to endure the frightful horror of war 
for the sake of others — this made me proud to be 
an American. It was not because all the soldiers 
in our army and navy were brave, some were 
not, but because the great majority of that 
army was unfailing in daring courage and absolute 
fearlessness, that I rejoiced in being also an 
American. It was not because all the soldiers in 



/ Pledge Allegiance 101 

the army and navy were honest, clean-minded, 
victorious over the terrible temptations that 
met them, thousands were not, hundreds were 
utterly defeated by sin who could never have been 
defeated by gas or shot or shell. But the great 
majority of that host of youth was honest, high- 
minded and true, they struggled against evil 
within them and around them and they won — it 
was this that made me glad I am an American. 

About two years ago, I took a trip around the 
world. Again and again, on my journey, I was 
glad that I am an American. When I saw the 
schools and great hospitals built in China by 
Americans to help her in her struggle with disease 
and ignorance, I rejoiced. When I saw the hospi- 
tals and colleges built in India by Americans to 
help Hindu and Moslem girls escape from the 
superstition and ignorance that handicap the life 
of girlhood in that land, I was glad to be an 
American. When I saw the Armenian refugee 
children, ragged, dirty, helpless, starving, being 
fed and clothed; when I saw in Central Europe 
the hundreds of suffering children and hungry 
men and women being kept alive by American 
food and clothing; when I heard the stories of 
some who had escaped from Russia, stories that 
almost broke one's heart, and learned that the 
only ray of hope in that dark sky was the hurrying 



102 When You Enlist 

relief trains and boats carrying food and clothing 
and medicines, it was with gratitude that I 
remembered that I am an American. 

It was not that America is faultless — she has 
so many faults and so great that, again and again, 
her failures make those who love her most, blush 
with shame. But the spirit of her people is great. 
The majority does love justice and is determined 
to treat all men with generosity. She is sincerely 
trying to act " with malice toward none and with 
charity toward all." 

So when the great liner brought me back to 
America and I saw our flag floating in the air 
against a clear, blue sky, I saluted it with all my 
heart. I greeted it with prayer, with loyalty, 
with love. I knew, having seen the world, that 
under its protection all men have a greater oppor- 
tunity to win success, secure education for their 
children, gain happiness and freedom than in any 
other land on earth. There are people who are 
poor, but their poverty cannot be compared with 
the poverty of India, China, the Near East. 
Little children suffer much, even under the Stars 
and Stripes, but their sufferings cannot be com- 
pared with what the children of those countries 
must endure. So, with reverence, I salute the 
flag, I pledge allegiance to all the great ideals it 
represents, to all that the spirit of the people for 



I Pledge Allegiance 103 

whom it stands has accomplished, and for greater 
things which it will accomplish in long years to 
come. I rejoice to know that you who read this 
page salute it also and pledge allegiance with me. 

As I honor the forces of our army and navy and 
these United States which, in days of trial, danger 
and death they represent, so I honor the men and 
women of that other noble army which, in days of 
hardship, danger and death, " fought the good 
fight and kept the faith/' and so I honor the 
church which they represent. As I think of my 
country, seeing its failures and its sins, but 
remembering its dreams, its hopes, its great spirit, 
and pledge it my deepest allegiance, on my honor 
promising to be true to its best, so I think of my 
church. Knowing its failures and sins but remem- 
bering its hopes, its dreams, its great spirit, I 
pledge to it my deepest allegiance and on my 
honor promise to be true to its best. With me, so 
pledging allegiance, is a multitude almost too great 
to be numbered. They are in Japan and China, 
Africa, India and the Islands, the Near East and 
Europe and all over America, North and South. 
Many of them are young like you who are making 
your first pledge and J promising your devoted 
service. 

I think the church is worthy of their allegiance 
and yours. I think you have a right to be proud 



104 When You Enlist 

of what it has tried to do to make life easier for 
men; of the schools which have followed wherever 
it went; of its hospitals, free to those too poor to 
pay; of the long list of its work for the welfare of 
fatherless, motherless children, the blind, the 
deaf, the lame, the old; of the laws protecting the 
ignorant and the poor for which it has fought and 
is fighting; of the challenges to unselfish living 
and high ideals which come from its pulpits; of 
the determination with which it keeps to its task, 
the hardest task man has ever set for himself — 
that of making proud, self-satisfied men and 
women whose gods are greed and gold, think of 
others and give their full share of service to the 
world; of the fact that no matter how dark the 
world's history, it has always had in its ranks those 
loyal to Jesus Christ and the God whom he de- 
clared to be the loving Father of all mankind. 
Something of its great struggle and of the heroes 
who were true to its best, you have read in these 
chapters. You know that as great souls were 
needed by America, and Washington and Lincoln 
with many others answered the need and led it 
into greater freedom and better service, so great 
souls were needed by the church, and the disciples, 
the apostles, the early martyrs, WyclifTe and 
Huss, Zwengli and Melancthon, Luther, Calvin 
and Knox and a host of others who came after 



I Pledge Allegiance 105 

them, answered the need and led it on to greater 
freedom and better service. The need of our 
country now for leadership that will unite us, 
help us find true liberty and teach us how to share 
the burdens of the world is greater than ever before 
in our history. And the need of the church for 
leadership that will unite us, help us to find true 
liberty and teach us to bear one another's burdens, 
is just as great. 

What if among you who, amidst the flowers, 
have joined the churches, large and small, all over 
America, such leaders are sitting today. No one 
dreamed when George Washington at fifteen sat 
reading his books, riding horseback over his 
father's estates or listening with intense interest 
to the stories of Indian warfare, or joining in the 
service of the little church, that the day would 
come when he should be the first President of 
a Republic such as had never been known before 
anywhere on earth. No one dreamed that Abra- 
ham Lincoln, a very poor, untrained, awkward, 
hard-working boy, struggling to buy books or to 
borrow them, that weary as he was he might spend 
half the night in study, would become the great- 
est of all Americans. If any one had prophesied 
it when Lincoln was fifteen, he would have been 
laughed to scorn. 

No one dreamed that Peter, mending his nets 



106 When You Enlist 

by the blue sea, a fisherman without advantages of 
the education of the schools of his day, would 
become the first great preacher of the Christian 
faith. No one dreamed that Paul, a brilliant 
young Hebrew, would forsake the company of the 
Pharisees and a fife of comfort, to preach the new 
faith, as a prisoner in the great Roman capital. 
No one could dream that Martin, the miner's 
son, would become the great reformer who brought 
into being the Protestant church with its oppor- 
tunity for greater freedom and progress. No one 
dreamed that a little band of Pilgrims taking their 
Bibles with them, writing their compact in the 
tiny ship that had brought them safely to shore, 
would ever found the great nation to which we 
have been pledging allegiance. 

No one dreamed when those five boys sat under 
the haystack at Williams College, sheltered from 
the rain as they talked over the need of the non- 
Christian world for God and the good tidings of 
Christ, that they would become the leaders of a 
great procession of young men and women from 
every part of America to every corner of the globe, 
a brilliant company, every page of whose history 
is a record of sacrifice, boundless courage and love, 
a company still giving to the world names worthy 
of following, Morrison, Carey, Judson, Living- 
stone and the rest. 



I Pledge Allegiance 107 

No one can prophesy who joined the noble army 
when you united with the church and pledged to it 
your service and love. Only the long future years 
will reveal that. It may be that you, reading this 
page now, will lead the various companies of the 
Protestant church, now called by many names, to 
unite for service, that together we may overcome 
the enemies of the religion of love that Jesus Christ 
died to give to the world. We shall perhaps 
always keep our honored names but you must help 
us, while we respect each other's differences, to 
stand together against wrong. 

In the dark days of nineteen hundred eighteen, 
during the World War, when the Allies felt that 
they were fighting with " their backs against the 
wall," each strugghng nobly but without a com- 
mon plan, General Pershing wrote a letter to 
Marshal Foch. It is a wonderful letter. You 
can read it when you visit the Congressional 
Library at Washington. In this letter he says 
some things about the hopes and ambitions of the 
American Expeditionary Forces, but he feels that 
only the united strength of all the armies, under 
one commander, will defeat the enemy. Here is a 
paragraph from the letter : — 

" There is, at this moment, no other question 
than that of fighting; our infantry, artillery, 
aviation, all that we have is yours to dispose of 



108 When You Enlist 

as you will. Others are coming and will be as 
numerous as may be necessary. I have come to 
say to you that the American people would be 
proud to be engaged under you in the greatest 
battle of history.'' 

That offer was accepted with words of appre- 
ciation and gratitude and Marshal Foch became 
Generalissimo for the united forces of the Allies 
and America. 

Perhaps some day the church may say to itself 
as it looks at the enemies of righteousness: " We 
can never win this way. We must unite our 
forces under our one great Commander. All over 
the world, we must stand together against wrong 
— a great world company of Christians with a 
common plan, determined to defeat selfish ambi- 
tions and greed." 

It may be that you who are learning that when- 
ever leaders in the church spent their time in 
persecution of those who did not agree with them, 
it grew weak and was unable to conquer; whenever 
the church grew ambitious for its own glory, it 
became poor in spirit and could not overcome sin. 
But whenever it remembered Jesus Christ, 
accepted his leadership, studied his commands, 
prayed earnestly, spent its time in loving, unselfish 
service, it grew strong in spirit and was able to 
conquer the enemy. 



I Pledge Allegiance 109 

So you will not think much about the things 
on which the various divisions of the church do not 
agree, you will think of the glorious messages on 
which it does agree. 

" Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, 
which shall be to all people. For unto you is born 
this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is 
Christ, the Lord." 

" Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his 
righteousness; and all these things shall be added 
unto you." 

" Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye 
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto 
you." 

" Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel 
to every creature"; "And lo, I am with you 
always." 

" This is my commandment, That ye love one 
another, as I have loved you." 

"If ye love me, ye will keep my command- 
ments." 

" Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that 
men should do to you, do ye even so to them." 

" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 

This is the first and great commandment. 

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as thyself. 



110 When You Enlist 

On these two commandments hang all the law 
and the prophets.' ' 

" But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; 
and the greatest of these is love." 

" God is love." 

On these great things and many more we can 
agree. 

Dr. William Gilroy in a very beautiful letter tells 
the story of Nelson's two great officers who, 
because of differing opinions, had quarreled. 
But on that day of the great battle, as they saw 
the enemy fleet approaching, one said to the other, 
" Yonder is the enemy — shake hands." That is 
what you must help the church to say in the 
presence of the enemies of Jesus Christ and the 
kingdom he came to establish upon the earth. 
It may well be that the very ones who will do this 
are reading these words now. 

If you will help the church to do these things, 
then in the years ahead, young people of the 
church of that day, a hundred years, two hundred 
years from now, will look back with pride and joy 
to you and what you have done. They will thank 
God for your courage, strength, and wisdom, as 
you today thank God for the noble army with its 
loyal disciples and the great company of its 
undaunted souls who followed after them. They 
will read of the days when you joined the church 



/ Pledge Allegiance 111 

and showed it that no true follower of Jesus Christ 
can hate or let prejudice rule his action; when you 
helped it stand together with such strength that 
the enemies which threatened it met defeat, and 
your courage, faith and service made a better 
world. 

Thinking of these things Sunday after Sunday 
when you sit in the church, thinking of them 
morning and evening when you pray, thinking of 
them as you study the words Christ spoke, think- 
ing of the kingdom he means to build, I am sure 
you will want to join with a great company of 
young Christians all over the world who are 
saying: — 

" I pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ. 

" I pledge allegiance to his kingdom of love. 

" I pledge allegiance to the church whose great 
task and high honor it is to build that kingdom 
upon the earth." 

On the day when we welcome you into the noble 
army, it seems to us that the flowers are more 
beautiful, the music more glorious, our faith more 
steadfast, because we believe you will accomplish 
the things for which we pray and even greater 
things than we can dream. If you love God with 
all your hearts, you can. If you love men — 
selfish, ambitious, proud and needing help, or poor 
and discouraged, needing friendship; if you love 



112 When You Enlist 

the world's little children, suffering for the sins 
and failures of men, you will. 

The organ is playing the recessional : — 

" A noble army, men and boys, 
The matron and the maid/' 
Then — 

"Who follows in their train?" 

it asks in stirring tones of mighty challenge. 
I can answer. I know. . . . You do. 



LB i 



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